The Courage to Act on What You Already Know

Amy, my daughter, and I walked into her favorite tiny place in the desert called Siddhartha’s Garden for a smoothie. I walked out thinking about the trajectory of a human life in a way that stayed with me long after we stepped back into the desert warmth.

On the surface, it’s a small, colorful place in Lake Havasu City. Blender quietly humming. Conscious cuisine served as dishes that look like art. People greeting each other with real hugs…big loving hugs, and authentic welcoming words. The kind of place that feels alive the minute you walk inside.

But underneath the ordinary rhythm of a small town café, there was something else moving through that space.

A kind of alignment you could feel.

Corey, the owner, stood out immediately in his vintage, colorful style, completely himself and not apologizing for it. But what struck me wasn’t how he dressed. It was the steadiness in him, the grounded energy that comes from someone who has walked through something and come out the other side altered, knowing his mission and committed to service.

As he visited with Amy and me, he shared pieces of his story. Years before, he had been in a long relationship. Deep commitment. A proposal. From the outside,e it looked solid, even beautiful. But deep inside him, something had been tugging for a long time. Not about love exactly, but about misalignment. A quiet, persistent knowing that if he kept walking forward without addressing it, he would be betraying something essential in himself, something sacred to his own values.

He could have overridden that voice. Many of us do. We rationalize. We soften the edges. We convince ourselves that discomfort will fade.

He had been doing that for years…but couldn’t anymore.

He stopped his life before it rolled over him.

And that stopping was not clean or heroic. He is not a perfect man who suddenly found clarity on a mountaintop. There were years of living split in two. Deeply committed to his faith and equally tangled in choices that did not align with it. That split created shame. It created numbing. It created a quiet despair that nearly took him under. There was a point when he almost lost his life. 

The marriage proposal did not create the tension. It exposed it. And for the first time in a long time, he chose alignment over comfort, even though it meant dismantling a life he had invested years in building.

Then his body forced another reckoning. His illness was serious. Life or death serious. He could have surrendered to it. Instead, he chose discipline. He researched. He changed what he put into his body. He leaned into natural healing, clean food, prayer, and responsibility in a way that most people talk about but rarely sustain. It was not smooth. He struggled. He took steps forward and slid back more than once. He was disappointed in himself more than once. Changing one’s lifestyle is hard.

And by saving his own life, he went on to create a space that has become life-giving to others.

Owning a restaurant is not romantic. They are exhausting, relentless, and risky. But when the opportunity to purchase this café appeared, it arrived at a moment when he needed something more to live for. Siddhartha's Garden became more than a business. It became a lifeline…and his service to God and his community.

A few months later, peaceful Brian arrived.

Different faith. Different background. A stranger in a small desert town. Also very sick. Sick enough to be on a transplant list. He had heard about Corey’s recovery, and instead of dismissing it or staying in his own lane, he leaned in. Brian showed up. And when he got there, he didn’t demand attention. He quietly planted himself in that restaurant day after day, reading, studying his Buddhist faith, researching healthy living, observing, absorbing, and asking questions when Corey had time.

It takes humility to ask another person to help you save your life. It takes even more humility to sit quietly and learn in a room where you don’t yet belong.

His health began to shift for the better. Slowly. Steadily. Enough that doctors are reconsidering what once felt inevitable. There is a very real possibility he may be removed from the transplant list. Not because of magic. Because he listened to his divine guidance…and because he acted on that guidance. 

And then there’s Jodi - her knowing eyes are as sparkly as her spirit.

She left her marriage. Left most of her belongings. Drove west without a grand, carefully crafted plan. She simply knew she would not stay where she was. As she arrived and walked the little downtown streets of Lake Havasu, she felt drawn into this small café. Not logic. Not strategy. A pull. She lingered for a while. Jodi paid attention to the sacred promptings. She felt something that would not leave her alone.  She knew she belonged here…at least for a time.

An apartment upstairs next door opened. She asked about it. She asked about a job, too. She was willing to work, even without pay, because she too, felt the calling to serve.

That is not a whim. That is true conviction.

Different religions.
Different personalities.
Different histories.

Three people who had reached a breaking point in their own way and chose not to ignore it.

It struck me that alignment recognizes alignment. When someone is committed to living their values, they begin to notice others doing the same. That is how these three found one another.

I noticed the pattern. Observing. Listening. Acting.

Not impulsive emotion or spiritual theatrics. But listening to that persistent inner knowing that refuses to disappear, the one that lines up with your deepest values, the one that keeps tapping when you try to smooth it over.

Corey is clear in his mission and his devotion to serve through Siddhartha’s Garden.  He told me he hasn’t paid himself in years. Not because he can’t run numbers, but because to him, this isn’t a business first. It’s service. It’s obedience. It’s the place he was refined to steward. And when he said that, he didn’t sound dramatic. He sounded steady.

He recognized that they were pulled by the same commitment to serve. And that is why they are there.

I am deeply spiritual. I believe there is a divine thread running through a human life. I believe in Divine Design. I believe we are shaped by what we walk through. But I do not believe we are passive in that shaping. We participate. We cooperate with that thread. Or we resist it.

What moved me to tears that morning was not coincidence.

It was the courage to act when the nudge comes.

Each of these folks had their own struggles, their own situations, people, and routines…but this time, when they received their higher guidance, they stopped…listened…and acted.

Standing there inside four simple walls called Siddhartha's Garden, I felt something sacred. Nature has always been my cathedral. That is where I feel the Holy Spirit most easily. And yet in that built space, watching people practice their values instead of just speaking about it, I felt that same current.

It wasn’t hype at all.

It was alignment. It was integrity.

And then it turned back on me.

I am aging. I often talk about designing the last third of my life instead of drifting into it. Watching them did not make me sentimental. It sobered me. It clarified something I can no longer pretend not to know.

You do not drift into alignment. You choose it. You interrupt your own momentum for it. You risk comfort for it. And you work for it, every single day. Just ask Corey.

My own nudge is not as dramatic as theirs. I am not being asked to leave a relationship or respond to illness. I am being asked to live more boldly as the woman I already am. Less of who I think I should be at this age. More of who I was shaped to become.

I have been formed by love, by loss, by rebuilding faith from the inside out. I do not believe that shaping was random. I believe there is a Divine Design in a human life.

I am done waiting for an earthquake before I move.

Most of us already know where we’re out of alignment. We just don’t always want to admit it.

What would change in your life…and who might be impacted…if you listened before the earthquake?

Because that’s what this café proves.

Corey’s alignment didn’t just save him.
It created a refuge for others.

That’s bigger.

Love is ALL there is,

Diana

P.S. If you’re passing through Lake Havasu City, Arizona, stop by Siddhartha's Garden and experience the sacred energy yourself.